Health law's health coverage expansions pose logistical challenges

Politico reports on how immigration status will play into this effort, and McClatchy notes the strain that will be felt by the physician workforce as a result of the across-the-board push to increase access to care.

Politico: Immigration Status Is A Health Policy Challenge
The Obama administration's drive to cut down on America's uninsured is about to get multilingual. Come 2014, when core provisions of the Affordable Care Act kick in, millions of legal immigrants will have new options for gaining health coverage. And like U.S. citizens, most will be subject to the individual mandate, under which they will be required to get coverage to avoid a penalty (Cheney, 5/16).

McClatchy: Not Enough Doctors
The Supreme Court's ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, expected in June, will determine the future for countless Americans. Health care reform debates have elevated the plight of millions of uninsured Americans to the national consciousness. However, the physician workforce that would be needed to care for millions of newly insured people deserves equal attention. There is a growing shortage of primary care physicians in the United States, and it has been forecast for decades. The American Association of Medical Colleges projects a shortage of 124,000 physicians by 2020, 37 percent of them primary care doctors. This growing shortage predates the coming squeeze due to the Affordable Care Act (Johnson, 5/15).